Agency Prensa Latina

SOLIDARITY. Cuba, which has chronic economic problems of its own, has managed to scrape together 600 tons of sugar for Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It's a gesture of solidarity, the news agency Prensa Latina reported Wednesday. The donation was made by Foreign Minister Isidoro Malmierca to Imad Jabar, who represents the Palestine Liberation Organization here.

A fire at a Havana generating plant cut power supplies to some areas of the Cuban capital on Thursday, officials said. People living near the Tallapiedra plant were briefly evacuated from their homes, they added. The official news agency Prensa Latina said the fire was brought under control after about three hours. Part of the plant was damaged, it added.

EXPLOSION KILLS 8. Eight workers at the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Co. aluminum finishing plant were killed in an explosion. Five employees were injured. The blast came when workers tried to light a blast furnace that had been under repair. The official news agency Prensa Latina said a gas buildup may have been the cause.

Twenty-six Cuban refugees have been repatriated from the Bahamas under a January agreement between the countries to send back illegal Cuban emigrants, state media said Friday. The news agency Prensa Latina said members of the group, which included two women and a child, were flown from the Bahamas on Thursday.

Twenty-six Cuban refugees have been repatriated from the Bahamas under a January agreement between the countries to send back illegal Cuban emigrants, state media said Friday. The news agency Prensa Latina said members of the group, which included two women and a child, were flown from the Bahamas on Thursday.

UNKNOWN CREATURE. The bones of a previously unknown kind of dog have been found in western Cuba. The official news agency Prensa Latina said they came from an animal about the size of a sheep dog that lived about 5,000 years ago.

AMERICANS TO BE FREED. Two American suffering from AIDS will be released from prison and returned to the United States, the official news agency Prensa Latina says. They were identified as Michael Ray Hyatt, 25, a Wisconsin native living in Florida, and Alberto Gonzalez Quinones, 39, a Puerto Rican native living in New York. They were arrested on drug charges.

THERE'S MORE. More speeches and statements by Cuban President Fidel Castro will be published in 100,000 copies of the second edition of his book, it was reported Tuesday. By the Correct Road includes parts of speeches by Castro about his 2-year-old campaign to ''rectify errors and negative tendencies'' on his island nation, the official news agency Prensa Latina said. The drive has included calls for greater worker discipline.

NEW TRADING PARTNER. Talks are under way for Brazil to become a major supplier of goods and technical information to Cuba, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina has reported. Mercedes Varona, an official with the Foreign Commerce Ministry, said no formal trade pact had been signed but predicted that within three years the sale of Brazilian goods to Cuba could reach $250 million annually, the agency said, including chemical and agricultural products.

CUBAN OFFICIAL KILLS SELF. A senior Cuban official committed suicide Sunday in Havana after leaving a note saying he had been suffering from severe depression, the official Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported. It said Col. Rafael Alvarez Cueto, head of the Interior Ministry's finance section, was not under investigation. The ministry has been involved in one of the biggest scandals to hit the communist government of Fidel Castro, with officials accused of corruption and links to drug trafficking.

Cuba will never become a ''neo-colony'' of the United States and will fight 300 years if necessary to preserve its independence, President Fidel Castro said in remarks quoted Wednesday. Castro, speaking to building workers Tuesday at an almost-finished hotel in Havana, said the enemies of Cuba spent the five years since the fall of communism in eastern Europe predicting when the Cuban revolution would collapse. ''They're going to spend another 50 to 500 years without seeing that moment,'' said Castro, quoted by the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina.

Two Cuban passenger trains collided, killing eight people and injuring about 150, the official Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said Tuesday. It said 29 of the injured were seriously hurt in the crash Monday evening. The agency quoted the Transportation Ministry as saying a train heading from central Havana to the suburb of El Cotorro collided with one arriving from Pinar del Rio.

An epidemic of a mysterious nervous disease has affected nearly 50,000 people in Cuba, and Cuban and foreign experts have still not pinpointed its cause, Cuban health officials said Wednesday. ''The total of those affected is approaching 50,000, although a decrease in the number of daily cases is reported,'' Francisco Machado, a doctor with Cuba's Civil Defense Service said, quoted by the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina. State television said Tuesday night that 48,000 Cubans had been afflicted by the disease, which Cuban health authorities have called a ''neuropathy.

MILITARY TRIAL. Gen. Jose Abrantes, the former interior minister, and six other officers are on trial before a military tribunal. The news agency Prensa Latina said the charges are abusing power, negligence and improper use of public resources. Gen. Ulises Rosales is presiding judge. He was in charge of July's drug trafficking trial of 14 officers. All were convicted. Four were executed, including revolutionary hero Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa.

TRAIN WRECK. A Havana-bound train derailed on a bridge in eastern Cuba on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and injuring 219, the official news agency Prensa Latina said. The locomotive and four of 10 cars plunged off the bridge over the Jaibo River and fell nearly 75 feet, the report said. The accident occured at midday between the towns of Guantanamo and San Luis, about 550 miles east of Havana.

CUBAN OFFICIAL KILLS SELF. A senior Cuban official committed suicide Sunday in Havana after leaving a note saying he had been suffering from severe depression, the official Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported. It said Col. Rafael Alvarez Cueto, head of the Interior Ministry's finance section, was not under investigation. The ministry has been involved in one of the biggest scandals to hit the communist government of Fidel Castro, with officials accused of corruption and links to drug trafficking.

A fire at a Havana generating plant cut power supplies to some areas of the Cuban capital on Thursday, officials said. People living near the Tallapiedra plant were briefly evacuated from their homes, they added. The official news agency Prensa Latina said the fire was brought under control after about three hours. Part of the plant was damaged, it added.

Two Cuban passenger trains collided, killing eight people and injuring about 150, the official Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said Tuesday. It said 29 of the injured were seriously hurt in the crash Monday evening. The agency quoted the Transportation Ministry as saying a train heading from central Havana to the suburb of El Cotorro collided with one arriving from Pinar del Rio.

POPE INVITED TO CUBA. Cuban President Fidel Castro has invited Pope John Paul II to visit his country, a Cuban official said Sunday. Jose Felipe Carneado, the Communist Party official in charge of religious affairs, extended the invitation Friday when he met with the pontiff at the Vatican in Rome, the official news agency Prensa Latina said. While flying to Africa last month, the pope told reporters ''the road has been opened'' for a visit to Cuba after an invitation in April by Cuba's Catholic bishops.

SOLIDARITY. Cuba, which has chronic economic problems of its own, has managed to scrape together 600 tons of sugar for Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It's a gesture of solidarity, the news agency Prensa Latina reported Wednesday. The donation was made by Foreign Minister Isidoro Malmierca to Imad Jabar, who represents the Palestine Liberation Organization here.